Another Note
by Moss E
Summary: "6. If memory serves, these  minor incidents  included the case of the Afrit, the Envelope, and the Ambassador's Wife; the affair of the Curiously Heavy Trunk; and the messy episode of the Anarchist and the Oyster. Mandrake nearly lost his life in all..."
1. Catastrophically Humiliating

**A/N:** Today I realized three things:

that fan fiction doesn't have to be good and usually isn't anyway (although most people do prefer quality of some sort, which is a sadly an almost unattainable desire),

that I don't really care what a bunch of people I don't know on the internet think of my awful, barely edited writing (though I do hope to entertain _somebody_),

and that the Bartimaeus fan fiction archive is tiny enough as it is and could use more love, no matter where is gets it from (quality be damned!).

So here we are, with some old, old writing that I will try to continue because it's amusing, but probably will forget about it. Isn't that what the rest of the site does anyway?

PS: this story is based on a footnote in Chapter Three of Ptolemy's Gate.

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"This… this is a curiously heavy trunk, Mr. Button."

This, Kitty thought, was a marked understatement. Thoughts of this variety occurred often to cargo movers and men with spend-happy wives, or really to all who had ever had the misfortune of being carelessly handed a deceptively small object and having their hands mashed into the ground by its weight. For a slightly insane moment Kitty felt the urge to giggle at the mental image of Mr. Button rummaging fretfully through his kitchen cabinets (which he was doing right now) whilst donning a layered skirt, a wide-brimmed stuffed vulture hat, and a corset (which he was not doing right now), completing the image of poor Lizzie as the pitiful, hard-driven servant to her mentor.

Shallow pain lanced up her arms. Kitty sobered up immediately and remembered that her fingers were still trapped beneath the combined bulk of the hatbox-sized chest and the absurd cluster-legion of mismatched iron padlocks and chains that came with it, which in total must have doubled the amount of space the small chest took up by itself.

Gritting her teeth, she carefully pried her abused fingers from between the chest and the rug. It was enough to produce a hollow boom like thunder and an ominous echo when it hit the carpet again.

Kitty stared. Wasn't the floor concrete under the carpeting?

"Um. Mr. Button?"

"Yes, it's quite an unusual specimen," said Mr. Button distractedly. An apparently offensive silver snuffbox was removed from a drawer and tossed over his shoulder, leaving it up to Kitty to lean across a tower of books and catch the box one-handedly. "It's made of cedar, you know. Holy wood of sanctuaries and protection. Good, solid old stuff."

Kitty glanced downwards appraisingly. The trunk didn't _look_ very holy, or protective, or solid. Mostly it looked like the victim of a poorly drawn pentacle and a marid. There was even a touch of the rotting-chopping-wood-in-waiting look. She probably would have put it in one of those _Fragile! This side up! _cardboard storage boxes if her throbbing knuckles weren't shrieking a painful assurance that the chest was indeed very solid.

She returned her attention to Mr. Button and tried again. "Sir, what exactly do you have in here?"

Her mentor continued to turn his drawers inside out, presumably in search for a book. "Oh, the snuffbox? Pestilence in a box. Nasty little bugger; open it, toss it at some poor fellow, and run. Not a single protective spell or command word was bestowed on it, which is a shockingly bad oversight of safety. Not exactly something a person wants to have lying around in their cabinets, you know? Be a dear and dispose of that for me as well."

Kitty's arm dangled limply at her side, silver snuffbox cupped loosely in her palm. With mixed parts apprehension and irritation, she slid it into her overcoat pocket. "I meant the trunk, sir," she clarified. "It's kind of… hefty, for its size."

"Don't be an idle layabout, Lizzie," Mr. Button said in good humor. He turned his chalk and dust covered face towards her with an amused expression. "You ought to get going now, child. Magical artifacts don't confiscate themselves at Whitehall."

"Um. Sir. I mean it, your trunk really is… unusually heavy. No, _unnaturally_ heavy," said Kitty. To prove her point, she gave the box a mighty shove with the side of her foot and almost tripped over it for her effort. It was like trying to upend a tree root. She then proceeded to kneel on the ground and push with both hands, hard. Not an inch of movement.

With more than a little vexation, she turned around, braced both feet on the opposite wall, set the small of her back against the chest, and struggled to push off from the wall in a most undignified manner. She might as well have been heaving against the side of a cliff.

Mr. Button tutted. "You are becoming most melodramatic. This behavior is unbecoming of you." The good-humored expression turned into a mildly cross one. "To answer your question, I'm not sure what's in there. A fellow scholarly magician entrusted it to me before departing on his travels, but unfortunately passed away before he could retrieve it. I suppose it contains family heirlooms or somesuch. Lockets. Goblets. Diaries. Diadems. I've never tried to unlock it, out of respect." He waved his hand dismissively, already turning away. "Either way, there are no heirs to send the battered old thing back to, so I dug it up from the basement and thought I'd finally get rid of it. Are you quite satisfied, Lizzie?"

"We have a basement?"

"_Are you quite satisfied?_"

_Not really._ "Yes, Mr. Button," she said politely in a dead tone. "I'll be out the door in a jiffy."

'In a jiffy' turned out to be nearly half an hour and several strained muscles later. After failing to budge the box in any fashion, Kitty finally stormed off to the kitchen, where she had a good, long cussing session out of Mr. Button's hearing range. She also picked up a baking pan, some thick twine, and a small, wheeled box-cart. When she returned to the living room, she wedged the sturdy pan under the trunk and flipped the trunk onto the wheeled cart. The force of impact threw the cart against the wall and left a dent. Kitty resisted the urge to curse again.

Luckily, Mr. Button seemed once more lost in a world of dustbunnies, cluttered cabinets, and physically-impossibly suspended piles of books. He didn't turn around once to acknowledge Kitty's hardship or the great ruckus.

_Then_, Kitty had a devil of a time navigating the still very heavy trunk through the towering mazes of old books; sweated profusely over the possibility that the trunk's weight would cripple the supporting beams of the porch steps as she coaxed the cart down after her (it landed on each succeeding step with similarly foreboding thunder-roll echoes and clangs. Thankfully, it did not smash the steps underneath her into splinters and then break her legs by landing on top of her); wheeled the thing up a very slightly sloping sidewalk with great toil, grumbling under the incredulous looks of passerby when the cart crushed fist-sized rocks and construction bricks in its path; and turned red with mortification when she held up the public transport by five minutes as she struggled to haul the cart up the bus steps and only succeeded in breaking the twine, thus necessitating the use of the bike rack for storage.

When she arrived at Whitehall, she was more than happy to leave her burden, cart and all, with the bemused secretary and the small posse of spindly-armed, suited magicians who were valiantly attempting not to pull a muscle by sharing the weight of the trunk between them (it wasn't working).

In the vigorous pursuit of forgetting the day's embarrassments, the mystery of the box's contents did not cross Kitty's mind again until much later.

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The first thing John Mandrake did when he woke up was wish that he hadn't.

For one, he felt like his head had been run over by a steamroller, and he thought that maybe someone had removed his brains and replaced them with packing peanuts that were crowding against the inside of his skull. He pursed his lips and licked them. They were numb and dry. For a moment he considered opening his eyes, but that would mean having to discover whatever disgusting material was coating his skin.

_Thump. Thump. _

The sound was more potent than thunder in causing his head to throb with pain, and Mandrake jerked involuntarily. This, in turn, caused more bones and joints to snap and send knife-like jabs of pain shooting up his exceedingly sore limbs. With a creak, his jaw opened and he moaned.

_Thump. Thump._ "Rise and shine, princess."

Reluctantly, he pried his eyes open and was immediately blinded by light. Once the initial flare of brightness died down, he blinked rapidly to clear the yellow gunk that had coalesced in the corners of his eyes and squinted.

In reality, the early morning light was dim and soft. It poured in various grays and reds into the first-floor lounge of John Mandrake's townhouse. Mandrake himself found that he was observing all of this while lying down on his leather couch. How he'd gotten there, he didn't recall.

On the far wall was a bookshelf. This being the lounge, the bookshelf was filled with trite but expensive displays of wealth. Incense jars were lined up neatly on one shelf, crystal figurines were arranged carefully on the shelf below, jewel-like insects under fixed magnifying glasses occupied another, and etcetera. The magician was vaguely alarmed to find that these priceless artifacts were rattling ominously in synchronization with the repetitive _Thump. Thump. Thump._

Atop the bookshelf sat a skinny, dark-skinned boy. He sported a bomber jacket and a gentle smile that didn't quite reach his eyes in sincerity. He was also rocking back and forth quite violently, causing the bookshelf to sway dangerously and slam against the wall loudly. _Thump. Thump. Thump._

Mandrake would have protested, but his growing horror and mortification were too distracting.

These feelings must have showed on his face, because the boy's smile grew and he slipped off the shelf. The bookshelf gave a final, especially loud _THUMP_, and fell silent with a quiver. The boy moved, casual-as-you-please, towards Mandrake.

The little smirk stretched to a horrific grin of Cheshire proportions.

"There's something," the boy began giddily, "called common sense."

"_I don't want to hear it_," said Mandrake. Or at least, that's what he had meant to say. What had really come out resembled the sound a broken accordion makes, or a half-dead chicken. He excused it as his parched throat, and not his cracking voice.

"Your voice cracked," said the boy. "Anyway, there's something called common sense that even the least members of the least species on this earth – that would be humans, by the way – possess as a basic need of survival. For example: when trying the waters of a new and dangerous activity for the first time, take caution and don't go at it so hard."

"_Shut up._" Mandrake was sure that attempt at speaking was at least more intelligible than the half-dead chicken. Maybe he was about up to Mouler level.

"That was your first time, I'm fairly sure. You were getting awfully flustered and defensive about it… not like you were any good at it either."

"_Go. Away_."

"I imagine that you're pretty sore right now. In body and dignity."

"_Unngh._"

"When the carnivorous beast several times larger than you charges, you drop your spear and run. When the ground presents you with a canyon and a perilous thousand-foot drop to a rushing river, you don't try to leap the gap for kicks. When the fire burns you, when the bog bites you, when the bee stings you, you don't try to pet them. When the Irish ambassador takes you out to a shady nightclub and challenges you to a drink-off in front of his busty female companions, you do not take him up on his offer and boast that you'll drink him under the table. Irish, Mandrake. _Irish_. Wasn't that enough of a warning?"

Struggling to beat his voice box into submission, Mandrake managed a croak. "Why… didn't… you stop… me?"

The dark-skinned boy yawned and put his hands on his hips. "Well, I did make a few attempts to warn you between equal parts humiliation on your half and side-splitting laughter, but you were being rather… difficult." The Egyptian boy suddenly became taller, paler, and scrawnier, and appeared to have traded in his leather jacket for what once must have been a very smart outfit; the silk tie now hung like a noose around the neck and the dress shirt's top button was undone. The pseudo-Mandrake sported stupidly unfocused eyes, flushed cheeks, and a rakish grin. It took a few uneven steps, wheeling its arms in large circles.

"_Wasted you say? I'm not _wasted_, I'm _recyclable_!_" the doppelganger crowed in a high warble.

Mandrake groaned and ground his forehead into the upholstery.

"_Swear to drunk, I'm not god!_" the djinni went on, strutting unsteadily in swaggering circles around the couch. "_Oh alright, maybe I am a little tipsy. But I shall be sober in the morning and that ambassador will still be ugly, ahahuhurggh. Of course, you will still be highly intelligent, witty, dignified, and of unmatched power and grace. I am in constant awe of you, Bartimaeus. I'd really be nothing without you. In fact, since you are clearly far too good for this world I will dismiss you the next morning…_" Here Bartimaeus descended into unpleasant gurgling sounds and began bounding around the room, floating in the air for improbable stretches of time before landing on tip-toes and springing up again gaily.

"I didn't say that," said Mandrake in a small, scratchy voice.

He felt a hand firmly, but not roughly, force his head to turn upwards. The Egyptian boy was back, and grinning more viciously than ever. "Well you'll never know, will you? Tell me, exactly how many of your few brain cells are still intact after last night? Not enough to put together a standing argument for your dignity, that's for sure. Or, you know, to remember how to stand in the first place, judging by how I had to drag you back here," the djinni said gleefully, fisting its fingers in the magician's hair.

Swatting Bartimaeus' hand away, Mandrake continued to sulk into the armrest. His scalp felt vaguely tainted now. He was going to get a haircut. Now. Right after he felt sufficiently human again.

A deep, sophisticated chime rang clear as a wineglass throughout the townhouse – the doorbell. To Mandrake's ears, it was akin to the sound of scraping rust off with a shovel.

He managed his first coherent and very firm sentence. "I am not going to get that."

The djinni snickered, and Mandrake felt its weight leave the couch. "Alright then. I'll answer it, and you can crawl away into solitude and darkness of unconsciousness to recover, like the pasty little worm you are."

Mandrake did so.

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I loved being able to get away with insulting Mandrake.

Not that anything the whelp did would stop me from doing so, but the opportunities were harder to come by these days. Unsurprisingly, he was becoming more and more important. Mostly this meant that he was as vain as ever and had developed the notion that ignoring your slaves was the 'cool' and 'mature' thing to do. Jibes became an exercise in the wasting of metaphorical breath, as they tended to prompt a swiftly assigned mundane task [1].

[[1. It used to be that pointlessly destructive acts born out of tedium, like the 'accidental' misplacement of valuable Persian manuscripts that would send scholars around the world into hysterics, would have the boy shrieking in tandem. Nowadays, he inclines toward giving me a disdainful, holier-than-though look, and sends me packing to the Research Minister to explain why the product of several months of their department's work had literally gone up in smoke.]]

Quite frankly, I was a little baffled and insulted by the presence of this new flippancy that the impudent boy was wise enough not to show before. I'd thought there was something resembling respect between us that would at least require mutual acknowledgement. Well, it would be a temporary phase, if I had anything to say about it. This new development was a welcome reprieve from the strange and puzzling staleness our interaction had taken lately.

However, I was _not_ loving the small child that the harried social worker at the door was trying to shove into my arms.

" – the Prime Minister himself requested that she be transferred to Mr. Mandrake's custody temporarily, _only_ temporarily, you understand, she's actually the orphaned ward of a very important friend of his and I suppose you'll meet her guardian when he comes back to town but for now you are to treat the girl as a high-profile guest is this clear? And – "

A pair of wide, dark, bottomless eyes stared up at me in a discomfitingly hollow manner.

" – the PM wishes to say that he apologizes and hopes that she won't be too much trouble but that he has great faith in Mr. Mandrake and trusts that he'll be able to do a good job because everyone else's hands are tied up – "

Colorless, pixie-ish face. Long pigtails. Two pink hair clips. Natty blue Sunday-best dress. Charmingly chubby little fingers.

" – papers not needed, you're really only _babysitting_, so to speak, we don't know how long she'll need to stay here so be prepared for anything, so Euphemia, dear, behave yourself for us, alright? Thank you for your time and good luck!"

And the social worker was gone.

Normally, by this time I would be overflowing with eloquence and expressing my vehement doubts about the situation in a totally reasonable but nonetheless strongly worded manner. But really, you couldn't blame me. For you see, I was occupied.

The five year old and I regarded each other with no expression.

I, for one, thought that I was broadcasting a pretty good 'soulless, ethereal entity of an otherworldly and alien nature' vibe, what with my freakishly blown pupils and flat expression. However, little Euphemia seemed to have no intention of dropping her equally blank and lifeless visage, despite the fact that she must obviously be uncomfortable from being hoisted a foot above the ground by her armpits [2]. She didn't seem to feel like blinking any time soon either.

[[2. By yours truly. The stressed-sounding lady at the door just sort of dropped the girl on me with the expectation that children had the ability to cling to things magically like Velcro.]]

So neither of us gave ground in the stare-off.

As the seconds passed, a curious wariness pricked at my insides. The child was merely dangling limply in my arms, putting up no resistance or even moving. My arms were tiring. Continuing to meet her gaze, I tentatively anticipated her first action as though I were waiting for someone to jump around a corner at me.

Then – just the slightest twitch of a foot. A fisting of small hands. Something flickered dimly in those empty eyes, something that reminded me of the uncoiling of a sleeping reptile of unknown proportions in the dark, and the lines of her babyish face began to tighten –

Suddenly highly unnerved, I quickly set the child on the ground.

"Well!" I chirped exuberantly. "Er, Eugenia, is it?"

The child's face was wooden once more. Slowly, she lowered her pale face to stare straight ahead past me and folded her hands neatly at her waist.

"Right. Well, we're just going have to set about making you at home here, won't we? As our honored guest, we must have you feeling comfortable enough to, ah, do with the space as you please. I know exactly where to start, little Eunice, so if you will…"

I proffered a hand. She stared at it without a reaction.

I retracted my hand and pulled it to my chest. "Right. That's fine, big girls like you don't need their hands held anyway. I like that. I have a feeling we're going to get along, don't you?"

She walked right past me in a dainty, oddly stilted gait.

"Sure, we can follow your lead. No problem [3]."

[[3. The fact that she didn't know the layout of the house would only make detrimental 'accidents' more inevitable.]]

Twenty minutes later, Mandrake had managed to stay on his feet for long enough to make it to the kitchen, where he promptly keeled over once more in shock.

I waved one paint-splattered hand, while using the other one to carefully pry the girl's equally soiled fist out of her mouth and press her palm gently to the wall as a finishing touch of our collaborative masterpiece. "Hello, Mandrake! This is Eustacia – she'll be here for who knows how long, eating your food and redecorating your place with pieces such as this lovely finger-paint mural. And she's all your responsibility - you get to play house! Won't that be fun?"

His blank stare rivaled the child's in lifelessness. After a beat, Mandrake got to his feet once more. "I'm leaving you," he said.

I started. "What?"

The magician turned his back on me, the child, and the defaced kitchen wall, then walked out.

I hastily abandoned both the mess and the child on the dubiously secure stool, hurrying to catch up to Mandrake. "Excuse me," I ventured, "I couldn't help but be perplexed by the woefully ambiguous nature of your language. Clearly to need to expand your meager vocabulary so that you can communicate on the same level of sophistication and intelligence as the rest of the world."

"I don't know what a little girl is doing in my house, or why my wallpaper has been replaced with handprints and rude words in paint," said Mandrake calmly. We exited the hallway and dawdled as the magician retrieved his coat from the coat rack. "But I don't care right now, because I've been called to the ministry by a messenger imp to deal with an emergency. I am still trying to suppress a raging headache and am in a condition in which I am unable to see straight. I'm not in a good mood, and it's taking all of my dignity to not explode right now, so if you want to tell me something that might shake that fragile stability and cause me to break down… do it after this is over, on pain of the Shriveling Fire. Or I'll throttle you."

"I notice that you're still avoiding the word 'hangover'."

"Throttling, Bartimaeus. I don't care if you don't have a windpipe, I will bend you so out of shape that you will manifest a windpipe and die from asphyxiation when I wring your neck."

The boy still looked worse for wear – his face a funny sickly color, his eyes watery and unclear – but he seemed as determined and stoic as he was ever going to be. If he wanted to perform suicide, both physical and social, by going to work, that was fine with me.

But there remained a small problem. I jabbed a thumb in the direction of the vandalized kitchen. "Well, who's going to take care of the kid?"

Mandrake was now adjusting his hat and halfway out the door. "You, of course. You're certainly not coming to the ministry to humiliate me in front of everyone. Don't mess it up, Bartimaeus." And the door shut.

I stared, frozen. After making a series of uncharacteristically unintelligent noises of stupefaction, I turned away from the door.

There in front of me was the child, who stood silently watching in the hallway. Red paint smeared the front of her skirt.

Smoothing down the front of my jacket, I addressed the child with forced gaiety. "Well! It's just you and me now, Euglena."

The child kept staring emptily.

For once, I was at a total loss for what to do.

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	2. Cannily Handled

**A/N: **Yeah, grammar issues – I have them. I reread the last chapter and spotted a good number, so if you see them here… I'll probably cotton on to them quickly, but feel free to point them out anyway!

I don't know much about police forces, so if the ranking is inappropriate, please don't let me stew in ignorance.

And uh, I'm not fond of this chapter. I'm not terribly inspired at the moment, but I had all this time on my hands and figured that it would be a pity not to utilize it.

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"You're tardy, Mandrake."

Jane Farrar had an eyebrow raised coolly at Mandrake as she strode briskly by on clacking high heels.

Mandrake made what he hoped was an equally cool and dismissive sound in the back of his throat and followed her up Whitehall's front steps unsteadily. He prayed that he appeared more or less composed before speaking. "I take it that you've been summoned about the emergency as well?"

"Do you have a cold, Mandrake? You're rasping." Flashing her identity at a uniformed guard, Farrar passed through the entranceway. Mandrake followed suit with some mild irritation.

He cleared his throat. "Um, yes, I do happen to be a little bent out of shape… but duty calls, and matters of government take precedent over all else."

"Well, try not to talk, it's affecting my delicate sensibilities negatively. The sound of vibrating phlegm is not altogether very appealing." Farrar didn't even glance back. The sound of her clicking soles echoed crisply in the tiled, arch-ceiling hallway.

Mandrake twitched. "You could afford to be a little politer," he said evenly. "I am, after all, the head of Internal Affairs. I hear that Devereaux still doesn't have quite enough faith in you to grant your request of probationary captaincy of the Night Police… what with the nasty Duvall affair."

His fellow magician came to a full stop, and Mandrake backpedaled quickly to avoid colliding with her. After a moment, Farrar turned to an alcove in the wall and adjusted a leafy potted plant sitting within it. "I'm sorry, John," she said in a sweetly apologetic tone. "You're absolutely right; I've not been myself recently, it's all this stress at the office. I'm just so frustrated all the time from not being taken seriously, you see? But you, John – " She turned and smiled coyly at Mandrake. "I think that _you're_ being unnecessarily blunt and petty. You're not stupid. _You_ know all that dollop about Duvall and I being in league is rubbish. Is something troubling you that would have you act this way?"

"Hmm. I'm a little apprehensive about this 'emergency', I suppose." Mandrake rubbed the back of his neck, annoyed with his carelessness. He'd definitely slipped in saying something so blatantly hostile, and because of it, Farrar had managed to turn the situation on him.

Farrar brushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear and gave a trilling little laugh. They started walking again. "Well, I guess that anyone could get a little _drunk_ off the excitement," she tittered. Mandrake winced. "I'm simply grateful for being chosen as the representing sergeant. This will be a stimulating investigation, don't you think?"

"Er. Well, I can't make any predictions yet, as we don't know what the emergency is…" Trailing off, Mandrake's stomach fell as he realized that he'd been cornered.

"Oh?" Farrar flicked a glance over her shoulder. Her eyes glinted like sparking flint. "You haven't been told? John Mandrake, head of the illustrious Internal Affairs, isn't totally omniscient? Why, even I, a mere detective sergeant, know when a state of emergency is taking place!" With a flippant hand gesture, she laughed softly again. "Oh don't look so belligerent, John, you know I'm just teasing. You'll see what it is soon enough."

Mandrake shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to dwell on his stupidity. The thought of alcohol was especially prominent in his ruminations, appearing every five seconds or so – usually for Mandrake to blame it for his political clumsiness.

"How old are you again, John?" said Farrar, interrupting his reverie.

"Sixteen," he bit out. Well, in a few weeks. And then some.

"Well, I'd never know that you were underage, you're so mature! I was going to ask if you wanted to get a drink out after this, but I guess that would be absolutely _illegal_ unless I purchased for you, and a lady shouldn't have to buy drinks, hahah."

The bitch. She was barely two years older than he was. This didn't stop Mandrake from needing to suppress his desire to disappear into the ground.

"Sergeant Farrar! Mandrake!"

At the same moment, Farrar's and Mandrake's eyes met. They simultaneously twitched the corners of their mouths and suppressed an obvious eye-roll in an affectation of camaraderie. With fixed smiles, the two magicians turned to face the lanky ginger man scurrying in their direction.

Farrar raised a colloquial hand of greeting. "Good morning, Jenkins. Are you here to take us to the scene?"

Shooting a thinly veiled glare of resent at Mandrake, Jenkins nodded. "This way please, if you will…"

Mandrake's ex-secretary took them through a side hall, and Mandrake noted that they were en route to the Security building.

"Does this mean that the emergency has to do with Ms. Whitwell?" inquired Mandrake. Somehow, he couldn't imagine his frigid old mentor, the Security minister, being careless enough to cause havoc.

Jenkins pushed his glasses up his nose knowledgeably and strutted onwards. "Not exactly. A week ago from today, a magical artifact was put in the custody of the government. It was not classifiable upon first analysis, so one Castiel Chamuel of the Security branch expressed interest in taking on the challenge. Yesterday, the case was cracked. Literally. Spectacularly."

"… I'm afraid that I'm not following you."

Jenkins' smile was infuriatingly smug. "The a object, a trunk, had been locked and sealed with astoundingly complex magical security. After many time-consuming efforts, Chamuel managed to open it."

Farrar added her comment smoothly. "All architecture within a thirty meter radius of the explosion was decimated. Chamuel is missing, presumed dead."

The three of them approached a set of double doors. Farrar took out a key, unlocked them, and pushed them open with a grand sweep of her arms.

Mandrake stopped dead. "Oh."

What was previously a courtyard was now a series of broken slabs of concrete jutting from the ground. A distinctive pile of marble lay pitifully where a fountain once was, and on the far side of the deeply cracked pavement was an even more ruinous sprawl of roped-off debris where a section of building had stood not long ago.

A few suited magicians and minor demons wandered about at varying paces and degrees of aimlessness, tripping on the chunks of waste littered about. None looked like they had much idea of what to do other than try to appear as if something was being accomplished for the distinctly immobile and untouchable disaster.

Stepping dazedly forward, Mandrake wondered if he was still slightly inebriated.

"You wouldn't be here at all, Mandrake, if it weren't suspected that this was an act of terrorism, which would fall to your Internal Affairs," supplied Jenkins, who was oblivious to Mandrake's shock. "As you haven't accomplished anything of particular note lately. The Council is worried that you're getting complacent, letting your department's performance _slip_. I mean, if this was the fault of your carelessness, that would be a shame, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, shut it, Jenkins," said Mandrake listlessly. He was mildly surprised and gratified to hear a refreshing snigger from Farrar. Straightening his shirt, he faced the now red-faced secretary. "I don't really think there's anything else we can do here, it seems they've got enough people on the scene. Do we still have the artifact in question?"

"Er, indeed we do," returned Jenkins sullenly as he compulsively pushed his glasses up his nose again. "I'll just… take you to the laboratory, I suppose…"

Hurrying across the courtyard, the three reached the propped-open doors of an intact building and slipped in. On the counter, in a cage of silver, sat a battered, old wooden chest the size of a large hatbox. Coiled next to it was a considerable pile of chains and padlocks, now presumably de-enchanted.

Mandrake walked up to it and circled the counter. "How come it's still completely intact?"

"Well, one of the standing theories as of now is that the chest actually used a force that sucked in everything around it, which was what caused the destruction. It's entirely possible that Mr. Chamuel was… disintegrated in such a manner, or that his remains are somehow compressed in the box. He was close enough to be the only thing that went in after the opening."

"Mmhmm." Mandrake rolled up his sleeves coolly. "Well, this can be solved easily enough, can't it?" The magician waved a hand and uttered an incantation.

With a noise like a tiny clap of thunder, a squash-faced, floating chameleon of somber disposition appeared in the air. It flickered its lizard eyelids, then skittered rapidly downwards through the air in a spiral, as if twining itself around an invisible pole.

"Igneel," Mandrake addressed the lizard imperiously. "I command you to bring this wooden trunk outside without harm to the object in question."

The chameleon nodded jerkily. Its torso suddenly became elongated, and as it lunged towards the counter its forelegs morphed to appear notably more similar to human arms. Landing heavily on its hind legs, the reptile waddled toward the trunk.

The minor djinni lifted the trunk, not without some trouble, and hoisted it over its shoulder, grunting. "Cor, ain't this a real heavyweight champion? Wot the 'ell's in here?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Mandrake glimpsed Jenkins starting in surprise. "Something the matter, Jenkins?" the magician asked.

The secretary made a noise of irritation. "No, no – it's just that it took _ages_ for a group of five men with a litter to lift it over here. The trunk was nigh impossible to lift. I suppose that demons just have greater natural strength…"

The chameleon rolled its eyes (Mandrake noted that this is something chameleons were very good at). "Yeah, that's right, keep talking about me like I'm not here, chum. It's your 'demon' that's lifting the bloody trunk here. Oh hell, this _is_ a heavy blighter."

"Igneel! You'd do well to watch your tongue," snapped Mandrake.

Sticking the said tongue out cheekily (which was very long), the chameleon hopped carelessly down from the counter. "You know, I really _am_ curious 'bout wot's in here. You never said I couldn't take a gander at it, did ya Mandrake?"

"Wait – !"

With a careless flick of chameleon fingers, the latch was undone. The lid lifted quickly, creaking as it bobbed in place until it opened all the way.

The demon grinned more devilishly than a chameleon should be able to and promptly plunged its arm into the chest.

A moment passed. For a second, the chameleon simply fumbled around in the trunk with one appendage. Then, it froze. The demon began to shake all over, as if vibrating. Its eyes bugled in astonishment, its mouth hung open –

And it promptly exploded.

Vaporous tendrils of smoky, oily essence lingered in the air. A smattering of red-hot embers of essence dissolved quickly into Mandrake's clothes, then evaporated in the same smoke.

Mandrake quelled a noise of disgust and tried to hold himself as if he hadn't flinched dramatically at his djinni's spontaneous combustion.

"Well," said Farrar, breaking the silence. She brushed imaginary dust off her sleeve. "I, for one, think that we ought to adopt a more cautious approach to this situation, so as to avoid dangerous spectacles like _that_. Clearly, more planning and research is required before taking action. Jenkins, please inform the Security minister that the Night Police will be more than happy to take up the challenge. Mr. Chamuel will be recovered in no time, dead or alive, and we'll get to the bottom of the purpose of this hazardous trunk."

Thoughts churning, Mandrake realized that he needed to turn this around fast. He had to stay on the case in order to bring his department into the spotlight again.

"Oh, but _Sergeant_," interjected Mandrake cordially, "I'm not sure that troubling dear Jessica with this tedious business is the best idea. Did she not, after all, send only a mere detective to represent the police force in this case? With the American war and their foreign ally spies to deal with, I doubt that she is taking much interest in this incident. As a minister, Ms. Whitwell has better things to do than listen to the appeals of a police officer of mediocre rank, or even spare hands in her department to support the investigation – which you, as a sergeant, clearly need, as you have little commanding power within your own branch. But as for me…" Mandrake furrowed his brow, as if deep in thought. "I'm the _minister_ of Internal Affairs. I was _specifically requested_ to come investigate in person, despite my many duties. Clearly, my assistance is more greatly needed."

Farrar's face twisted in indignation, suddenly loosing composure. "Whitwell _hates_ you," hissed the sergeant.

"The minister _respects_ me," corrected Mandrake gently. "And I have a funny feeling that in a debate over the possession of this case, my influence will prove to have more weight than yours." He raised a hand gracefully, closing his eyes against Farrar's attempted interruption. Farrar fumed. "However, I'm willing to not take this to Jessica. The Night Police, or rather the few constables under your command, are more than welcome to take part in the case should they be needed; their help will be accepted so long as they don't interfere where it's not their place to. A bigger labor force is never a bad thing, after all."

"_Labor force_?"

"Are we clear on this, Sergeant?"

For a moment, Farrar simply stewed in silence, fists clenched. Then, without a word, she turned on her heel and strode out the laboratory entrance. She didn't look back.

Finally, Mandrake let slip his impassionate façade. A lazy smile radiating muted self-satisfaction shone out of his face.

"Well, that's that, Jenkins. I'll go make the preparations for a proper encounter this time, and you inform your superiors that John Mandrake is taking the reigns on this one."

As Mandrake walked away, he told himself that he was on his way to another inevitable political victory and that there was no need for the knot of dread and apprehension in his stomach that had formed upon Farrar's exit. He tried to convince himself that he'd convinced himself.

..

..

* * *

..

..

"Are we expecting visitors, Mr. Button?"

The old magician did not stir at Kitty's call. He remained as he was, slumped and snoring, in a cushy and moth-eaten armchair.

For a second time, the clang of the doorknocker rang through the hallway. Kitty glanced at the door dubiously, then back again at Mr. Button. Whoever it was at the door, they were not likely here on personal business. It wasn't worth waking up a grouchy mentor and helping them up with their crutch to receive what was probably a new shipment of books. Most likely, it would incite an impromptu session of 'let's see how many new bruises Lizzie can obtain as Mr. Button flails in esoteric glee over his newest Seneca work and makes post-Trojan-war Towers of Ilium out of already-very-lethal book skyscrapers'.

As she navigated the stacks of books strewn about the floor with practiced grace, Kitty wondered exactly what kind of fiendish employer would force their workers to get up early on Sundays. She felt a brief spasm of pity for the unknown stranger at the door.

A _very_ brief spasm of pity.

Her previous question was answered as she opened the door, in the way nearly all gripes and complaints can be answered and traced back to: the government.

"Oh _hell_."

Kitty's heart leapt up her throat when she glimpsed a flash of subdued gray uniform and snappy brass buckles through the small gap in the door, and promptly slammed it shut indiscreetly. A pile of books trembled and came cascading down on Kitty.

By the time the door was shaking with the force of someone pounding on it outside, Kitty was down at the other end of the hallway and knocking down towers of priceless books to obscure the path behind her as she ran. Not that it would matter if a wolf high on growth hormone came crashing through the door.

Kitty came skidding to a halt in the lounge. She took one look at the innocently dozing Mr. Button and seized a nearby blanket. Throwing it over the old man's small body, she tugged on a few corners to ensure that he was completely hidden from sight and just appeared to be a lumpy pile of laundry before launching herself in the direction of the kitchen. There was a window there, she could probably just wriggle through it and from that point drop all her connections as Lizzie Temple. Harold Button would be fine since he was a magician, and Kitty could get her library pass altered by the Hyrneks so that Clara Bell could keep learning magic, and everything was going to work out so long as she didn't have to face that gray uniform at the door who would most certainly recognize her –

The window was jammed.

Breath exploded into Kitty's lungs as she broke out into gasps like a dying fish. Her efficient and business-like demeanor dispersed under the pressure of the first real threat she'd had for over a year, as she shook the rusted window clasp desperately.

The grimy pane rattled and squealed as it grated against its metal frame. Still, it refused to give.

"Dying for a breath of fresh air, I see."

Heart leaping wildly with adrenaline, Kitty spun around immediately. She adopted a defensive pose.

A young woman, tall and slender, stood before Kitty as composed and dignified as if she'd been born into the Night Police uniform she bore.

Kitty froze.

The gray-clad officer blinked, cat-like, and smiled silkily. She heaved a lazy sigh through her nose with a heartfelt 'hmmm' sound, tapping her immaculately manicured nails against the counter she leaned on.

With painful deliberation, the woman raised a hand and pushed back the brim of her cap with her thumb. The corners of her mouth quirked brightly.

"One Miss Temple present, I presume?"

As if suddenly kick-started, Kitty's thoughts jerked into motion. Right – she had both an objective and an obstacle to overcome to get to it. This obstacle would probably be best eliminated by obliterating it in the most literal sense possible. That was good. That was straightforward enough. That was very Kitty-territory.

"How did you get in?" Kitty said as stoically as she could manage. This was a genuinely useful question, as well as a time-buyer; Kitty hadn't heard the front door come down.

The officer dimpled attractively as her pleasant expression became almost imperceptibly more forced. "Your basement is an interesting place."

Kitty forgot herself for a moment and raised an eyebrow. "Right… okay. Where's your accomplice, then?" Also known as the madman in gray who had been attempting to break down the front door.

It was the officer's turn to give a quizzical look. "Accomplice? I came on my own, Miss Temple."

Muffled thumps and shouts came drifting through the kitchen from some distant part of the house. Officer and exile regarded one another wordlessly.

It was the invader that broke the tension. "I think you should get the door, Temple."

Stiff of limb, Kitty pushed off from the wall behind her. She marched stork-legged through the kitchen door, tailed closely by the other woman.

At the front door, the officer stepped to the side and ducked behind a stack of books. Nevertheless, she was still watching Kitty with intently glittering eyes. "Go on, girl."

Kitty squared her jaw. Still maintaining eye contact with the officer, she tightened her grip around the door handle and pulled.

"_Good grief, missy, what was that about_?"

Kitty whipped her head around. "Huh?"

An irate scowl crossed the stubbly face of someone peeking out from behind a stack of wrapped packages. Said someone adjusted their gray cap in a self-righteous manner (Kitty noted that this cap was very frayed and did not have a single brass button on it. She also noticed that the total amount of brass ornaments on his getup was actually very small, and that the few that were present looked plasticky and worn).

"Had me pissing myself there, y' know. Any decent would person get worried if they heard lots of banging and heavy things falling on the other side of a door. You all right, miss?"

Kitty blinked. She discovered that her mind was still relatively vegetative with bewilderment, but that her mouth seemed content to run on by itself. "Oh it's quite alright, sir," she heard herself say. "I just was a little surprised and tripped over a few things."

The man snorted and shifted his load of packages. "Daffy ditz. Well, these are for Mr. Button, does he live here?"

"Yes. I'll sign for him."

"You do that." With one gray glove-clad hand, the deliveryman extended a stylus to Kitty.

She took it. "You have a new uniform, I see."

"Mmm? Yeah, got them switched last week… we're technically a government-run service, and they want to be 'recognized more often for the plethora of ways they benefit society'… quote on quote. So everyone from mailmen to police are going to look like river sludge now." Shaking his head incredulously, the deliveryman sniffed and plucked the stylus away from Kitty. "Thank ya, miss. Have a nice day."

"Yeah. Uh. You too," returned Kitty faintly. She received an armful of packaged books.

Waving jauntily, the deliveryman pulled the door shut behind him.

Behind Kitty, the young woman emerged from her hiding place. She straightened the hem of her jacket and came forward. "Give those to me."

Kitty turned. "What?"

"The packages. I need to see them, in case they're dangerous."

_But they're just books. There's absolutely nothing of interest in them_. Nevertheless, Kitty took a step back. "Do you have a warrant?"

The officer's brow darkened. "This isn't the land of love and liberty, sweetheart. Hand them over."

Kitty's mouth became set in a firm line. Indiscreetly, she shifted towards the door so that she was in a better position to start sprinting. "No."

"Miss Temple, be reasonable." The officer was starting to look pressed for self-control.

"Even the Night Police need a warrant, I'm sure. There's a magician in this house who's an expert on law; I'm sure I could fetch him and clarify things."

The policewoman crossed her arms. She drummed her fingers against her forearm and advanced, carefully, menacingly, until she and Kitty were nearly toe to toe.

Kitty became acutely aware of how much taller the woman was than herself.

"I could kill you right now," said the officer in a low voice.

"Why don't you then?" said Kitty in utter calm. "I'm not armed. The only other occupant of this flat is a sleeping old man."

The woman's mask of assured superiority, which was already barely clinging, dissolved into a look of venom and loathing.

Kitty only blinked. "Well? Go on. Tear me apart, officer."

For a moment, it looked as if she would really spring. The officer narrowed her eyes, tensed at her joints, rolled her shoulders back – but then retreated with a rigid expression.

Breathing out, Kitty relaxed muscles that she didn't know that she'd been straining. She shifted the packages in her arms and balanced them on top of an already-existing stack. "Why are you here?" she asked simply.

"I need to speak with you."

"Oh?" Kitty folded her arms across her chest. "What for?" She was sincerely curious. Lately, she'd been lying low, and she recalled nothing she'd done that could have warranted the Night Police breaking and entering into her dwelling.

The woman stared fixedly at a point somewhere beyond Kitty's left ear. "Can we go somewhere more private?" she said tersely.

"How about that basement everyone seems to be talking about?"

"Do yourself a favor and let's not go down there again."

Kitty shrugged and edged past the young officer. "Then the kitchen will have to do."

Once they'd stationed themselves tentatively at the coffee-stained breakfast table (tentatively because the officer seemed to be practically hovering above her seat in an attempt not to make any sort of contact with the dirty kitchen surfaces), Kitty laced her fingers together and neutralized her expression. "And?"

"A week ago from today, you brought a magical artifact into Whitehall to be assimilated into government property."

Kitty's memory flared. She was treated to an onslaught of regrettable memories. "Oh. Yeah. That," she said unenthusiastically. "I didn't know it was magical. It wasn't even mine, you know."

The officer's mouth twitched. "Well, you might have suspected, given its homicidal nature."

"Homicidal?"

"It means tending towards activity of a murderous inclination, commoner."

"I know what homicidal means," snapped Kitty. "Who are you to lecture me?"

"A superior," the officer shot back smugly. "An officer of the Night Police. Sergeant Jane Farrar."

"I didn't ask for an introduction."

"And I didn't ask for a difficult, insolent, insignificant little commoner lichen to have to deal with." Sergeant Farrar crossed her legs and gingerly put an elbow on the tabletop. "But that's what I got, because this morning your darling little trunk killed one of our finest magicians, Castiel Chamuel, and demolished half the Security wing. You know, if a few of the right people get told, all fingers would be pointed at you and you would suddenly become a very, very guilty terrorist."

_Too late_, thought Kitty peevishly. "Are you here to arrest me, then?"

"Unfortunately, no. First off, there isn't much substantial evidence against you as a terrorist yet. Granted, with a little effort I could probably blame you for the incident, but somehow I don't think that would close the case."

"So you're saying you don't take me seriously enough to consider me terrorist material?"

"I'm saying that so long as you're useful to me, you won't be."

Kitty was starting to be wary of the sound of this. Casually getting to her feet, she walked backwards a few steps to the gas stove behind her. "I'll put on the kettle, shall I?" she said. Farrar looked like she wanted to stop her and order her to sit down with hands in sight.

But the sergeant seemed to manage to bite back these instincts. "So what it boils down to, Temple, is that you need to come with me to Whitehall. You're part of this, whether you like it or not. I'll need all the information I can get for the investigation, and you might be able to shed some light on certain anomalies."

Hand on the kettle handle, Kitty stayed stock-still. She could feel the tea boiling gently beneath her palm. "So what is this, an official investigation?" she asked.

With interest, Kitty noted that the sergeant stiffened. "I'm from the Night Police. What do you think?"

"Well," said Kitty slowly, moving one hand behind her back to turn up the gas all the way on each cook top. The distinct smell of gasoline permeated the air. "You could be investigating independently as a civilian, which might explain why you came alone and why you didn't have a warrant. You know, I bet you wouldn't even be here in a dirty commoner's dwelling if you weren't desperate and pressured. Trouble with the higher-ups?"

Sergeant Farrar's left hand fingers drummed ever more rapidly on the table. "That's ridiculous. Now, Miss Temple, you are going to come with me to the scene of the crime, and you will do so quietly and without resistance or I'll take you by force. Even if I were here without the blessing of the precious government, I can get away with so much more than you can. Don't think I won't resort to physical constraint."

Scene of the crime… Whitehall… with all those magicians around, her cover would be blown for sure. Sighing, Kitty looked down at her feet. "You won't need to, Sergeant," she said in a deflated tone. "I'll make sure of that."

The sergeant smiled and began to rise from her seat, confidence restored and supremacy reasserted. "Excellent. I knew you'd come around."

"Oh, don't count on me coming around for a visit. I don't think I'll be seeing you again today, actually." A flash of silver – Kitty seized the iron kettle, swung it up in an arc, and flung it in Farrar's direction.

All at once, Farrar shrieked and flung her hands up to protect herself. This proved futile, as the heavy and water-filled kettle continued on its path to her face. It hit home, simultaneously scalding the officer with both the boiling water and the cold of iron that affected all spirits and werewolves so heavily.

Quick as a whip, Kitty thrust a hand into her pocket and removed a matchbox. She snapped a match off and ran it up against the rough countertop.

_Fsshhhh_. A flame burst into life on the matchstick's tip. It danced and flickered merrily before Kitty promptly dropped it onto the stove and ducked away.

The stove erupted into flames. Nearby, the window curtains tainted with gasoline from the stove in gaseous form, shared a similar fate.

Behind her, Kitty heard Farrar snarl furiously in pain and humiliation. In anticipation of the officer's blind lunge, Kitty shut her eyes, grabbed the handle of a flaming frying pan and flourished it in her general direction. It made contact with something, and Farrar howled in an ominously animal-like manner.

The fire had climbed up the wall rapidly, helped by the gasoline lingering in the air. Pieces of plaster ceiling began to crumble.

_Time to go_, Kitty decided. She brought the pan high over her head and lobbed it with deadly accuracy at the window. The pane gave way neatly.

A blink, a scrabble of motion, and the girl was gone.

As Kitty stole her way through the backstreets of London and listened to the sound of sirens, she finally remembered Mr. Button, who was still in the house. Mr. Button, who was asleep, who was rather getting on in his years, who was missing one leg and had probably lost sight of his crutch among the myriad of very flammable books.

Woops.

..

..

* * *

..

..

The girl and I settled unanimously on coloring books.

Or rather, while I was offering my informed expertise on entertainment [1], little Eurydice had pulled down a shelf-full of books from the lounge and decided to start pulling out pages to use as a medium for the colored candlesticks she'd filched in the place of crayons. I felt like I ought to stop her for fear of repercussions, but I rather approved.

[[1. Mostly this involved me wandering aimlessly around the house, hovering over various expensive objects while wondering if I could somehow childproof a terracotta vase possessed by a malignant spirit so that the kid could play with it, and occasionally shouting activity suggestions over my shoulder to no response. Needless to say, I was pretty grateful that she'd found an alternative option to my proposals of 'bait the bottled spirit' and 'outrun the mites'. Clueless? Mildly panicking? _Me_? Not at all.]]

Of course, she went about this act of desecration in as a mechanical and shell-like manner as ever. Taciturn. Delicate. Without a single childish giggle or high-pitched shriek.

"So, Eulalie," said I, doodling absently all over a pentacle diagram with one hand as I lay slouched against the now half-empty bookcase, "I take it you enjoy Lewis Carroll?"

Rabbit holes. Rabbit holes are what I thought of as I appraised the child's 'pictures'. In reality, it was only solid circles of black wax marks that blotted out the dozens and dozens of sheets she'd gone through. Each of these magnum opuses were nigh identical and strangely meaningful, managing to convey as sense of deep, pitch darkness though a solid color. Like a well, maybe. Or a bottomless crevice.

Or a rabbit hole.

It wasn't just the holes things either; the impression of rabbit holes was further reinforced by a little, sloppy analog clock drawn in each corner.

I eyed Euphrates as she made slow, meticulous circles on a new sheet, gradually filling the space with black. She was curled up against the wall right next to me, her chubby face as empty as usual. "Ha," I chuckled, "Are you late, late for a very important date?"

Predictably, I elicited no response.

Now, you've probably deduced that I'm not one to blabber meaninglessly or talk a lot – no, that would be unbefitting of my ancient dignity – but I felt oddly compelled to fill what I perceived as a slightly eerie silence. I didn't enjoy the fact that a mere child would induce awkwardness in my usually unfazed countenance.

Finishing her latest work, she set it to the side so that it joined the ranks of other completed endless pits of doom strewn around her seat on the floor. The child looked liked she was surrounded by a host of mini black holes.

"You know," I blathered on, "I'd say that your art is inspired by the work of the late Poe Nevlar. A real abstract, poetic sort of guy. Were you a fan of his, Euphoria?"

The child's hand abruptly jerked. The point of her black candle broke from the cycle of circling lines, dragging a charcoal streak in a disorderly slash across the page.

Suddenly, it was very uncomfortable to be in such close proximity with the girl. "Of course, he was totally nuts. Eventually snapped and went on a serial killing spree. They had him executed for that." I inched away.

Finally, steadily, the child unbent her neck. She first rolled her large, soulless eyes in my direction, then allowed her head to follow to face me.

Oh. I hadn't wanted that. I got to my feet with a little more haste than I'd like to admit to. "Er, did I upset you, Eureka? So sorry, I didn't mean to offend your artistic expression or your hero – if it comforts you, he's still hanging around! Well, by a noose. But uh, you could still kiss him or something, if you really wanted to. Keep one of his rotting toes."

That's when the child stood up.

I ought to have gotten her into different clothes. She still had all those lovely, foreboding red paint stains on her skirt.

Her endlessly inky and moonless eyes bore ruthlessly into mine. And she spoke.

"It's Euphemia, dipshit," she said.

Oh, damn it.

No sooner than had I retreated in leaps and bounds, throwing up a shield, had she advanced. She hadn't _done_ anything that deserved caution _yet_, per say, but when someone, anyone, gives you a look like that, it's best to be on the safe side.

Turns out I was right to be heedful, because _Euphemia_ promptly snatched a silver skeleton clock from the shelf and pitched it impossibly halfway across the room into my shield. As is silver's nature, it tumbled right through and struck me on the shoulder, despite my recoiling away with lightning speed. My shield flickered and disappeared.

I hissed and shrank behind a bookshelf. A quick examination of my shoulder revealed sizzling and smoking essence. Why in the name of the Other Place did Mandrake keep so much silver sitting around the house? It wasn't like he was capable of using it to defend himself – he couldn't have thrown that clock half as far as that little girl did.

As if agreeing with me, a silver incense bowl struck the wall by my head, leaving a deep crack where it landed. I ducked just in time to find the child but a few feet away. She wielded various small, pricey-looking silver instruments of obscure function – or rather, these objects were cupped limply in her short arms. However, at this point I carried no doubts as to how quickly she could lift and throw them in senseless attack.

"I know what this is about," I said, simultaneously catapulting myself well over her head. A trail of silver and iron gadgets followed in my wake, every one missing me by a hair's breadth and going on to shatter against the ceiling. "You're fussy because it's nap time, right? Natty has a pretty nifty guest room, with a goose-feather down coverlet and all." I spun myself to cling to the ceiling. "If it so strikes your fancy, we can go and get you new feathers from freshly slaughtered geese. Better yet, you could slaughter the geese yourself! Unconventional, sure, but it seems like something you'd enjoy."

Making a rapid transformation to a scarab beetle in order to present a smaller target, I skittered on over to take refuge behind the grand silver chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. Not the most comfortable hiding spot, but it shielded me from Euphemia's considerably more deadly silver projectiles.

The child seemed to be momentarily stumped by this obstacle. We considered each other from a distance, both of us unmoving.

Her hands flopped limply to her sides. She tilted her wan face to the side almost endearingly.

But being surrounded by the carnage of djinni-destroying efforts kind of ruined any childish aesthetic she might have had before. At that moment, I decided that there was a point when a kid crossed the line of 'mischievous' to 'senseless tantrum' and someone had to lay down the law if the child was ever going to mature. Euphemia had just obliterated this line and entered the considerably more adult territory of 'complete monster'. Thus, she needed to be handled accordingly.

I was readying an appropriate Spasm when the child suddenly knelt. At this point I really should have just knocked her out and tied her up, but my interest was piqued.

Euphemia reached for the litter of papers by the wall. Shifting through them, she finally picked up a sheet and got to her feet.

She held her arms out, displaying one of her endless rabbit holes to me in its full glory. "Where?"

"Excuse me?"

Her features were as even and fixed as ever. She shook the thin paper a little, so that it fluttered with the motion. "Where?"

"Er." My gaze flickered to the waxy black blob and the crude little clock-scribble. "I'm afraid that you're going to have to be more coherent than that."

Clearly, she didn't like my answer. The only clue I had as to this was the resurfacing of that reptilian flicker in her eyes I glimpsed earlier; the next thing I knew, she'd dashed over to the remaining ceiling-high bookcase and shoved it over.

Groaning, the bookcase pitched towards the very big silver chandelier. Which was going to swing and collide with my tiny scarab body in a split second.

Right then, an invisible claw seized my insides and pulled beckoningly.

I grinned as best as a beetle can grin and allowed myself to be pulled away by the summons.

The chandelier swung into empty space. I was gone.

..

Admittedly, I wasn't incredibly thrilled by the sight of the pasty face in the pentacle opposite to the one I materialized in, but I had reason to be grateful enough to it to not full heartedly mean my immediately following barbs. Too genuinely cheerful at the moment.

"You look awfully happy for someone who was supposedly ordered to deal with a 'crisis'. Found someone to blame?" I fluttered around the pentacle, still in the guise of a scarab beetle.

As predicted, Mandrake's dopey, self-satisfied expression contorted into a glower. But only for a moment. With a flip of his criminally long hair, his pompous magician façade was right back in place.

Huh. Seemed like I wasn't the only one in a good mood.

"Bartimaeus," the boy said with a relish. "I take it that you'd appreciate it if I got my hair trimmed."

"Who, me?" In the blink of an eye, I switched form to Ptolemy and raised an eyebrow. "No, I couldn't care less if you choose to look like a absurd sort of human weeping willow. Why?"

He didn't even bat an eye. "In celebration of my forthcoming victory and clear upper hand over Jane Farrar, I am performing an act of generosity and self-sacrifice by going to head to the barber's for a proper hair cut. It can be a commemoration for the both of us, Bartimaeus, as we were both involved with the insipid Farrar in the messy Golem business."

The both of us were situated in what I recognized as part of the Security wing in Whitehall. It was a humble little side chamber, an unused office space in which the single pair of conventional pentacles was occupied by us.

I tapped Ptolemy's bare foot and glanced around, distinctly unimpressed. "Farrar's only a uniformed officer right now, Natty. I think that everyone from your _secretary_ and up has more authority than she does."

"It matters not! She's made a fool out of me through underhanded means more than enough times to warrant a little gloating when I can get it."

"Wow, you really are over the moon about this, aren't you? You're not even using strange and unusual euphemisms like 'for the interest of the state' and 'common welfare' for concepts like 'greed', 'power-hungry', or 'gloating' [2]."

[[2. Other inaccurate terms of politeness used frequently by magicians over the course of history are: 'greater good', 'utopia', 'rightful place', and 'sharing the wealth'. The latter was pretty popular in China and Russia for a while before Gladstone took over.]]

Mandrake adjusted his tie. "I'm not the only one to be accused of using peculiar word substitutes, as you insist on labeling them," he said loftily. "Seems to me that 'noble spirit' is a totally baseless euphemism for 'demon'."

"Ouch. That was low."

The magician smiled. "Don't be perturbed just because I've sunk to your level."

"I don't think you're the one doing the sinking here. _I'm_ the one continuously forced to stoop my standards just for your sake."

"What, the sake of insulting me?"

"Yes. You are undeserving of sophisticated abuses. They'd go over your head. Anyway. only the basest of insults could possibly apply to you, and saying anything remotely complex about your nature would just make me a liar."

Mandrake only waved a dismissive hand. "You can't bait me today, Bartimaeus. We've got a job to do."

I rolled my eyes. "You mean _I_ have a job to do. Surprise, surprise."

With a few muttered incantations and sealing spells, Mandrake stepped out of his pentacle and gestured for me to do the same. I trailed petulantly after him.

We made our way out into the hallway, where the magician began briefing the situation for me.

"So what you're saying," I summarized, "is that right now we're headed out to recklessly open a combustive trunk and see if there are the remains of some dead guy in there?"

"Barring all the fine details that I have just clearly wasted time in explaining to you thoroughly, yes."

"Brilliant. And it will be just my neck on the line, I suppose."

We exited the hall together into a courtyard. A courtyard that was at the moment both intact and nigh totally vacated. The only things occupying it was a piddling little excuse for a wooden chest in the very center and a frightened-looking, mousy-haired woman crouched under a nearby tablet with a clipboard in hand.

"Actually," the woman piped up squeakily, "both the djinni Bartimaeus and Mr. Mandrake will be approaching the chest, after a proper shield is set up. Mr. Mandrake needs to be up close to observe in person what is within the chest, in order to provide an unbiased testimony."

The said Mr. Mandrake jumped a little at the lady's interruption. I sniggered.

"Er, yes. Thank you, Miss…?"

"Piper. Rebecca Piper."

"Miss Piper. I presume that you're acting as a second witness and the supervisor?"

The young woman nodded furiously, her slightly frazzled ponytail bobbing up and down and her glasses sliding down her nose.

Mandrake rubbed his hands together, like a mustache-twirling comic book villain. "Excellent. So, Bartimaeus, if you will…?"

I snorted. "Right. Let us descend into the abyss."

Ha hah. Abyss. Holes. Rabbit holes.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten to tell Mandrake about darling little Euphemia, hadn't I?

It could wait. I might even get a kick out of seeing his face when we got back.

With a raise of my hand, I put a dome-shaped shield around the both of us. We solemnly proceeded forward.

Once in front of the chest, we stopped. I bent down, extended the shield just a mite to accommodate my reaching hand, and deftly undid the clasp.

The trunk creaked open.

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	3. Covert Hideaway

**A/N:** So guess who sucks at this updating thing because they picked a really shallow narrative style and is now finding difficulty maintaining this shallowness and lack of character exploration/development, and also has had writer's block since forever now and also has not edited this chapter in the least?

That's right. Me.

Seriously though, I thought I'd be done with this fic in a flash and now I'm regretting this hasty style I adopted under that presumption. And I don't know why anyone is bothering with this story, let alone leaving lovely reviews. So thank you for your patience.

Sort-of spoilers of Ring of Solomon, in that you have to have read it to understand some references/plot points here.

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Clara Bell, the girl previously known as Lizzie, previously known as Kitty, continued down the busy London street in an inconspicuous and self-assured way that pretended that she had every right to exist at the moment.

Which she didn't. She shouldn't.

Not only was this officially the case, as indicated by her original legal papers being filed away under some black label that read 'DECEASED', but she didn't really _deserve_ to be a walking, breathing, free woman. Actually, she felt pretty wretched at the moment. If she was stupid enough to dash back into certain slaughter to save the life of a measly magician, why couldn't she be momentarily lose reason again to rescue her mentor and benefactor?

Mr. Button was _elderly_ and_ legless_. It was like he was perfectly conditioned potential victim to guilt-trip Kitty.

But instead, she'd scarpered and left a gentleman who was much more morally sound than Mandrake to fend for himself.

Several times had Kitty stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and nearly turned back to Mr. Button's flat. Each time she remembered that she'd already seen the siren-wailing trucks leave the house. Also that Farrar would very possibly be waiting there and might abduct her before she could be of any help to Mr. Button. She could only hope that the extent of the fire's damage hadn't been too great.

The best way to make amends now, she decided, was keep herself alive so she could pay off whatever damages she'd sustained to Mr. Button's flat. Other perks to keeping herself alive included summoning Bartimaeus and eventually uniting spirits and commoners to overthrow the magicians, but even that was long term and inconsequential compared to the prospect of shrewd insurance companies. It was good luck, then, that Clara Bell could get started right away by retrieving her check at The Frog, where she was to begin her noon shift very soon.

She entered the bar through the back door by the dumpster. It was 12:12 pm, just after noon.

"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Fox," she called as she hung her jacket on the employee coat rack. "I had an emergency at home."

No response. Kitty could make out the sound of smooth jazz playing softly on the radio and clinking glasses as someone prepared drinks behind the counter, so she assumed that no one had heard her enter.

Humming in an undertone along with the music, Kitty donned her apron and proceeded to a small closet to turn on the heat. She knew that Sam and Mr. Fox always forgot about this, so she'd made it her habit to check that the boiler was warmed up before the bar filled up. Also, stashed there was a cache of detonation sticks, jolt-sticks, silver knives, and other various weapons to defend against spirits. Kitty had been delighted beyond the comprehension of her peers when the French spies had dropped by to donate them, and also took it upon herself to coo over them in secret every day.

Carefully, she removed the loose plank beneath the water tank and peered into the resulting niche with a small but growing smile of goofy content at the thought of her lovely combative weapons.

It was empty.

Kitty immediately stopped moving, plank still held awkwardly above her head. With disbelief, she hesitantly reached a hand into the gap. Her fingertips scraped the dusty and cobwebbed bottom. Every last knife and bomb was definitely gone.

A pause. Then, as systematic and adept as ever in a crisis (and this _was_ a crisis – she didn't care if it was a joke or simple thoughtlessness, _nobody_ touched _her_ babies without telling her or without a marid setting fire to the place), Kitty quickly replaced the plank and rocked back onto her heels.

"Sam?" she said in what she thought was reasonable calm. "Mr. Fox? Where are the weapons?"

Again, no answer. Kitty began to grow cross. "This isn't funny, sir. And Sam. We can't just be moving our only magical arms around without telling everyone. What if we really are attacked?"

Nothing. Still silence, but for the faint, jazzy melody lingering in the air like stale incense and the dim clink of glass. Kitty got to her feet.

"Honestly," she called out again, letting indignation creep into her voice. She smoothed down her apron and swept around the corner into the kitchenette. "You can't expect me to think that you can't hear me when I'm – "

She choked on her words and shut up.

The sink and the cook tops had been ripped out of counter and thrown on the floor. Little pieces of ash and electric wire dusted the tiles around the discarded appliances, and every cabinet had been thrown open, the glasses and pans within having been swept from their shelves. The icebox's door had been dented in; its door alarm wailed feebly in a streaming, continuous, single-toned beep as melted ice from the cooler seeped out onto the floor. A stout soup pot was still rocking back and forth on the tiles, pinging against the shattered glass on the ground. _Clink_._ Clink_. The pieces tinkled in a pitiful imitation of Sam's daily glass-cleaning sounds.

Jazz and blues continued to crackle echoingly over the radio. A brief, tinny, high trumpet trill punctured the tune's lulling murmur, and a snare solo started up jauntily.

Kitty backed away and dropped to the ground. Shuffling forward on the balls on her feet, she navigated the broken glass carefully and ducked behind a row of floor cabinets.

Not daring to breathe, she pressed her chin to the ground and peered around the cabinet corner.

The heavy, honey-colored light of the wall lamps cast their bronze haze over overturned tables, splintered chairs, and soot-stained walls. Neither motion nor living thing revealed itself under Kitty's wary eye.

Cautiously, cautiously, she stood once more. Assuming a half-hunched position, she skirted around the counter to examine the damage more closely.

The weapons hadn't been moved, or even stolen, she realized. They'd simply all been used up.

_Clink_. _Clink_.

_Crnnch_.

_That_ was the distinctive sound of a footstep.

Kitty instinctively snatched a half-shattered wine bottle from the counter. She set her feet wide apart and backed away towards the exit warily.

_Clink_. _Crnnch_. _Crnnch_. _CRACK_.

Rotating on her heel, Kitty faced the source of the sound with a firm grip on the neck of the wine bottle.

In the corner of the bar, the door of a half-decimated cabinet shuddered and splintered lightly. Visible through the narrow opening, a small girl peeked hesitantly out from within. She'd frozen, staring, with one tiny sneaker on the ground as she attempted to climb out of her hiding spot.

Kitty narrowed her eyes. She was well aware of the deceptive nature of demons.

"Don't move!" she barked. The child remained as she was, eyes wide and dark as if she were caught in spotlights. Never taking her eyes off of the girl, Kitty bent down and removed a pocket-sized silver dagger from her boot. It slid out of its sheath smoothly. With a tight and well-rehearsed motion, Kitty flicked her wrist and let the knife fly. The blade sunk its tip into the floor beside the child's foot. The girl didn't even flinch.

Paranoia placated, Kitty shifted out of her wary stance. She quickly made her way over to the cabinet and pried the shattered door open. Kneeling, she peered into the girl's petrified face. "Are you alright?"

The girl blinked. She shifted jerkily back and forth in the cabinet with movements that had a slightly hysterical edge, limbs and clothes getting tangled in the debris within. Kitty reached out and took little girl gently by the elbows. "Hey," she said firmly, "don't do that. Here, I'll – " Carefully, she half-pulled, half-carried the child out. Sitting her down on the floor in front of her, Kitty began methodically picking chips of wood and plaster out of the girl's dress. Still, the child stared down at her hands, silent.

Kitty frowned as she spotted the red stains on the girl's skirt. Blood? Paint? How old was this child, anyway? _Four, or five years old perhaps_, she answered herself. _Where are her caretakers?_

She brushed one of the girl's long pigtails out of the way and realized that the child bore a pink backpack.

"Do you want to take that off? It'll be more comfortable – " Kitty reached for the pack.

Without glancing up, the girl squirmed away, shrugging off Kitty's helping hand.

"Well, alright." Kitty retracted her arm. "So, where are your parents?"

Kitty waited for a reply. None came.

Taking a steadying breath, Kitty tried again. "Okay, then. Can you tell me what happened here?"

Her query was only met by a listless, blank look.

"Can you tell me your name, at least?"

The child raised her head, cocked it to the side. It was almost… endearing. "Mihailov," she uttered in a high, quiet voice.

"Um," said Kitty. "That's a nice name. Are you sure it's yours and not a Mafioso's?"

The child lowered her head again, played with the end of a pigtail.

_Well, at least she's not so traumatized that she's totally unrepsonsive_. "Do you have any idea where your parents are? I could take you home, if you like."

For a long moment, Kitty thought that Mihailov wasn't going to answer again, but then she abruptly slid her pack off. Unzipping a front pocket, she pulled a slightly crumpled sheet of paper. She turned to face Kitty.

"Take me here," said the child.

Kitty stared. The paper was covered with what looked like a blobby, black circle colored in with crayon. To Kitty, it distinctly resembled a bottomless hole. The small blank space in the corner was decorated with a clock with its hour hand on the three, or somewhere in that vicinity.

"Um, I don't know what this is… Mihailov."

The child regarded Kitty unblinkingly. "Take me here." She shook the paper. "Here. Hurry."

"Do you need to be somewhere by three o' clock?" asked Kitty bemusedly.

But the little girl said no more.

Though growing more and more mystified by the moment, Kitty decided that she would at the very least help the shell-shocked child find their home. She'd just have to brave the police station – maybe Mihailov was a last name, and they could find the girl's parents that way – and hope that no one was looking for an ex-Resistance member there. Gingerly, Kitty wrapped her arms around the child. The girl twitched violently and gave a surprisingly strong start in the other direction. Taken unaware, Kitty's grip slacked for a moment, but she refused to let go and scooped the child up in her arms. Kitty stood up and patiently waited for the girl to stop twisting.

Squirming, the girl fought Kitty's grip as if Kitty were white-hot and covered in cactus needles. But her efforts grew feeble very quickly. She eventually went limp in Kitty's arms and subsided into uncontrolled trembles. Kitty's heart gave an involuntary pang.

Adjusting Mihailov's position so that her head lolled on Kitty's shoulder, Kitty retreated out the bar's back door.

It was 12:20 pm, after noon.

Within ten minutes, the two were aboard a public bus, and the child hadn't stopped shaking the whole time. All Kitty could do was hold her tighter and stare blankly out the window, wondering about what became of Mr. Fox and Sam and the bar's customers at the time of attack and whether she was going to get any red on her clothes from the little girl's dress.

Time passed, and Kitty snapped out of her semi-daze when she noticed that they were on Whitehall Street and the grand white steps themselves were visible down the walk. She nudged the child.

"Look," she remarked to the girl. "It's Whitehall. We're almost at the police station, you know – you can wait for your parents there."

Kitty was not expecting the girl to freeze in her arms.

She was most certainly not expecting the girl to give one last monumental shudder that had Kitty almost dropping the girl in surprise, then wrench herself away from Kitty, roll over on the floor, and unzip her pink backpack.

And Kitty was shocked, to say the least, when little Mihailov produced a detonation stick from the pack and fired at Kitty.

A roar of sound in her ears, and Kitty was flung sideways out of her seat. A bulb of white light flared in her eyes as she landed and knocked her head on something hard. Her hearing was obscured by a high, clear ringing.

Thanks to her resilience, the fire from the detonation hadn't harmed Kitty, but its force was clearly something to be reckoned with, as Kitty was reduced to laying sprawled dazedly for a few seconds. Slowly, white noise began to filter in again: faint shouting noises, muted crashes. By the time she'd roused blearily and realized that the bar's cache of magical weapons had not actually gone into protecting The Frog, but rather was now being used to ransack a bus full of civilians, the world started to spin wildly around her. Fleetingly, Ktty thought she was going to faint, but when the surrounding occupants also started skidding sideways she realized that the bus had simply tipped onto its side.

Underneath her, the floor became vertical. Kitty scrambled blindly as she slid across the isle and barely managed to wrap herself around a pole before hitting the other side. The windows shattered behind her. Kitty's spine vibrated with the impact of the bus hitting the pavement.

Groans and hysterical screams punctuated the air amidst a flurry of displaced dust and panicked motion. Kitty cracked open an eyelid and glanced about fervently.

The child was nowhere in sight.

Kitty really ought to have stayed put and waited for wailing sirens and the Night Police like the rest of the passengers. She probably should have stayed for questioning and wound treatment. She was definitely obliged to identify herself as being involved in this assault so that she could testify for a probable case of terrorism.

"Huh. Well, isn't this a right pickle?" Kitty remarked to a fellow bystander, one hand tucked casually in her pocket and the other inconspicuously brushing debris off her sleeve. "Wonder what caused the bus to flip over."

The curious crowd that had gathered around the wreck within five minutes all gave distracted nods and murmurs of assent. Together, they resembled a flock of little carrion birds in their dark, hooded long-coats and tightly wrapped scarves, hovering futilely around a dead beast that larger predators were already descending on.

The Night Police crawled all over the upturned public transportation vehicle, prying emergency doors open and breaking windows to reach the civilians. Kitty watched impassively as one officer descended through the window that Kitty had broken not a moment ago to escape.

A hawk-faced, diminutive old officer – clearly low-ranked and human – appeared to Kitty's left and snorted. "Another one of these… they'll be taking the news to Chamuel again, no doubt."

Kitty stiffened and lowered her face away from the Night Police. "Chamuel? Who's that?" she asked. The name sounded familiar… didn't Jane Farrar say that the trunk had made a victim of him?

"I believe that he is in charge of regulating contraband weapons – those that crashed the bus, for example. I've actually met him once or twice on a crime scene."

Nodding jerkily, Kitty began to inch away. She just barely caught the tail of end of what the officer had to say.

"Now that you mention it…" the officer continued thoughtfully. "I don't actually recall what he was like. I do remember exactly what he said to me on multiple occasions – he was a very clever, resourceful fellow, believe me – but I don't think I could describe him to you for the life of me. Must have been a quiet sort of fellow. Forgettable face."

Kitty halted abruptly. Her voice took on a careful flatness. "Oh, one of those sort of guys? So ordinary that they never stick to your memory and they're totally unnoticeable, just because you can't define anything about them that stands out?"

"Yeah! That's right. Um, he _may_ have been a little pigeon-chested… or mousy-haired… hey, are you leaving?"

But Kitty was already gone. She blended in by trailing discreetly after the dissipating members of the crowd, stony-faced and furious of eye.

It was 1:00 pm in the afternoon.

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The last thing I heard before the pain was Rebecca Piper reading aloud the minutes as she played scribe from behind her table.

"12:12 pm in the afternoon. John Mandrake, accompanied by fourth-level djinni Bartimaeus, opens unidentified trunk of dangerous, magical disposition."

I suspect that whoever had chronicled Hiroshima while observing the event from a comfortable seat in a distant aircraft had used a similar, criminally clinical tone.

If I had been human, I'd probably have gasped aloud and collapsed. As it was, beings of essence have no necessity to manifest lungs or inner organs of any kind, let alone breathe. It's impractical, and no one is crawling around in your intestines to marvel at your excellent craftsmanship anyway [1].

[[1. Don't think I can't do it. I've seen enough of the insides of humans throughout the centuries, whether snugly piled inside of a slit-open corpse, strewn about battlefields, or draped decoratively around temples. With the extensive knowledge I have on the subject of delicate inner-things, I could make an art of triggering gag reflexes at the dinner table.]]

That said, it says something for the degree of my agony as my vision plunged into throbbing red and I _still_ choked and stumbled against my Shield. I was aching to the very core, with my nerves afire and the fabric of my essence burning with friction. I felt elastic; it was as if I were literally being rent in two different directions.

I hadn't known this particular feeling for a long time. Not for nearly three thousand years.

"Sh– shut the l– lid," I gasped.

A voice responded dimly somewhere over my shoulder. "What?"

"Shut the lid, Mandrake!"

"We can't do that. You're making no sense, Bartimaeus. What are you even doing?" The voice developed an irate edge. A spindly hand gingerly grasped my elbow and tugged half-heartedly upwards, as if debating on whether to help me to my feet or not. "Stop with the histrionics already."

"_Nathaniel, just close the box!_" I snapped.

The grasping hand stiffened, twitched like a dying spider. Mandrake released his grip at the exact same time the pain began to subside. As a result, I managed to salvage some dignity by not collapsing all over again and instead executing an elegant and practical lean against the Shield.

When the searing, stretching sensation was gone, I snuck a glance at the trunk. The thing had not changed outwardly in the least. It was still decrepit and gaping widely open.

The magician was bristling like a doused cat behind me. "I would advise you," he hissed, "to keep your voice down and not broadcast confidential information to the general public."

I drew my form away from the support of the Shield and allowed it to flicker out. "Didn't know that we're counting paranoid, preening, political vermin – a.k.a., the only other person here – as the general public now. Dear me, how society has decayed under the modern magician's rule," I returned lightly. "So, are you telling me that you didn't feel anything?"

Mandrake's stony grimace did not subside. "Besides a pounding headache and a lack of functioning in my sinuses that could easily be blamed on the drink? No. What exactly did you feel?"

Knotting Ptolemy's eyebrows, I inclined his noble profile towards the trunk again. "Nothing altogether very pleasant, I assure you. Curious. Last time I came across something like this, it affected humans too. Not as badly as it would spirits, but significantly nonetheless." Solomon's Ring had certainly given the king enough grief throughout his lifetime.

An electric tingle flew up my spine. Was it the Ring in the trunk? If so, how had it been uncovered? Frankly, I didn't much find the thought of the Ring being abused again entertaining, if I was going to be involved in it.

Besides, I was a little fed up with girls with knives, and given the Ring's history with such ladies I was a little paranoid that our resident (and conveniently probably still situated in London) armed female might turn up for the occasion, just for tradition's sake.

Mandrake pinched the bridge of his nose with a long-suffering sort of air that he wasn't entitled to use and shoved his way past me rudely. "Well, I suppose that we weren't disintegrated like Chamuel and Igneel because the trunk has used up all its current capacity for defense against intruders. The only thing to do now is to shed light on its contents."

This jolted me out of my reverie. "No I don't really think that's a, um – "

I fairly zipped after Mandrake to his side, seizing him by the collar and yanking him back. Though it was temporarily amusing to witness the expression on his face as he stumbled, I really needn't have done so.

I think we both noticed what was inside the trunk at the same time. It was difficult not to.

There was nothing in it.

A _lot_ of nothing.

For a moment I was under the impression that an impenetrable haze of darkness of magical origin obscured the trunk's bottom. I then realized that the trunk didn't actually have a bottom at all, and that the light simply stopped revealing its contents past the four wooden walls that sealed the darkness in. The utter blackness went down for an incalculable length; gazing down into its depths was like squinting into an endless railway tunnel at night.

An absurd notion seized me. Perhaps the tunnel bore through the earth as well! With my sneakered foot, I nudged the side of the trunk, lifting it and revealing its underside. The trunk still had a bottom, and what's more, there was no hole that had magically been drilled through the courtyard's concrete.

I let the trunk fall back to the ground. Tumultuous and thundering booms echoed thinly through the air, as if reverberating through the massive, earthy tunnels of a far away cavern. Inside the trunk, the floor was as missing as ever.

Narrowing my eyes, I flicked through the seven planes. There was a magical halo of an aura surrounding the trunk, but of a faint and less-than-significant nature.

"Huh. That's different," I observed, shoving my hands into Ptolemy's jeans.

Mandrake made something like a numb noise of assent. Transfixed, he bent gingerly and stretched an arm towards the trunk. "I wonder… exactly how deep does this go?"

"Oh no you don't." I carelessly wrenched him back once more. Seizing upon the lapel of his suit, I tugged, hard. Something snapped, and a silvery button came out in my hand. Before Mandrake could utter any outraged sound of protest, I deftly tossed the sparkling chip of metal into the depths of the trunk.

With barely a twinkle, it vanished into the depths. I listened hard. The sound of the button hitting rock bottom never came.

"That was a good suit," said Mandrake petulantly. He pulled at his lapel, attempting to pinch together the undone top of his jacket.

I ignored him. To follow up the button experiment, I conjured a Pulse. The marble-sized sphere of light jittered nervously about Ptolemy's fingers for an instant, then dove into the inky depths after the button.

"So," I began conversationally as I rocked my heels in Mandrake's direction. "Can _you_ make anything of this?"

The magician shrugged, maintaining a certain surliness in the motion. "My guess is that it's been enchanted to be bigger on the inside that it is on the outside. Such a practice is not entirely uncommon, though much more so in modern times. It's not something most demons can do directly, and the required ritual for the modification is largely lost… also, since such a feat is technically physically impossible, it's understandably difficult to pull off."

I considered this. Not impossible, given that I'd come across such a thing before [2]."Well, taking the complexity of the magic into consideration, this trunk can't be terribly big – though I would consider any size up to that of a small room. It might even be as big as your head [3]."

[[2. Pandora's Box, outwardly an unassuming if delicately crafted vase, contained a group of full-grown assassins from a Mediterranean cult. I had been charged to escort them to Athens on their mission. When the 'box' was at last opened, each highly-trained mercenary leapt out with the speed of king's falcons and the deftness of shadows. I, having been on Earth for some time by then, was a little slow on the uptake, and by the time I was out the target was already dead. Silver nets welcomed me at the vase's lip with open arms. Greece left a bad taste in my mouth, but thankfully that was the first and last I ever saw of it. It does comfort me to know that I am remembered as 'Hope'.]]

[[3. Alright, so I was being exceedingly unfair and sarcastic here. The trunk couldn't have possibly been nearly the size of Mandrake's swollen cranium.]]

The boy barely paused to shoot a dirty look. "Yes… I would, however, like to know what's being kept in it." Mandrake peered dubiously into the trunk again. A useless endeavor. It was as if the trunk swallowed light; there was no gauging its depths simply from looking. "Where is your Pulse, anyhow?"

Presently, a flash of light shot out of the trunk at speed. The light was rapidly dwindling and shuddering intensely where it hovered. All I managed to glimpse was a throbbing, warning-light-red with violent indigo highlights before the Pulse winked out.

I took this as my cue to make a decision on the spot. "Well, it's something that will likely see us both as so much ash in a cremation pot – which means that it's right up your alley, based my observations of you on our past ventures. I'll let you do the honors then, shall I?"

Scowling, Mandrake shook his head 'no'. "Investigating this immediately would be foolish. I hate to acknowledge that Farrar was right, but we need time to research and gather back up."

"Well, personally I'm pretty indifferent to the slaughter of mindless imp slaves as you pitch them into the abyss for experimental purposes so long as it doesn't involve _me_, but I'll admit to being a little impressed by your willingness to chain-sacrifice dozens and refer to the act so impartially. Very dictator-esque. Living off the work of spirits and commoners while oppressing them, scrabbling greedily for scraps of authority in the dirt amongst your fellow power-mongers … you're moving up! I'm quite proud of you." This jibe had nothing to do with anything, of course, but magicians are always fair game and by now I was cross enough to goad whenever I could.

Before the magician had a chance to respond in livid rage and expound on how the glorious Empire was not oppressive in the least, a certain little mouse piped up from behind her table-barricade. "Mr. Mandrake?"

The magician twisted his neck about and entreated Piper with a self-righteous and self-pitying look. "Ms. Piper, _you_ believe that the government's sole purpose isn't to live off the backs of others, right?"

Piper started. "Er. You might be… hard-pressed to find another area that they excel as much in [4]. But Sergeant Jane Farrar has just sent a message imp." Behind the secretary, the unfamiliar and pockmarked face of a gremlin stretched to accommodate a toothy smile, then vanished in a puff of purple smoke. "She says to prepare the trunk for her, as she'll be arriving at Whitehall shortly."

[[4. My hero.]]

"What? Is she ready so soon?" I saw with slightly rueful amusement that Mandrake was reacting more aggressively to this news that he had to the prospect of a physics-denying storage case. "But she's not authorized to have access to the evidence without clearance!"

"Yes. She says that she has important and relevant information regarding the origin of the trunk, and that she'll only share it under the condition that she be allowed to see the object in question, if only briefly. Apparently, she's been deemed worthy of the Security department's time."

Now Mandrake began to look concerted. A certain shifting about his feet indicated his desire to pace. "No, no, that's a bluff. Farrar can't have gotten any actually important information in so short a time – but that hardly matters. What matters is that she's been granted access once more, and one more chance at the box is all she needs. We have to move quickly."

I felt it prudent to interject at this point. "Yes, Mandrake. Move quickly in the _other direction_. Didn't you see the color of that Pulse? You'd have to be nothing short of an utter fool to be the first to attempt something."

"Exactly. Which is why you're going in first."

I paused, taking in the significance of this. "If you're trying to get me to take back what I said and admit that you are the very image of competence and intelligence, it's not going to happen."

Biting quips aside, I was now rifling rapidly through my mind for ideas on how to stop Mandrake. Was I curious as to why the trunk induced the feeling of being caught and stretched between earth and the Other Place? Yes. Was I apprehensive of the possibility of the Ring being back and even half-tempted to attempt to dispose of such an object before London's magicians squared it away? Yes. But there were better solutions. Unfortunately, none of them involved fulfilling Mandrake's insatiable ambition, as I rather think he'd throw a fit if I tossed the thing into a volcano.

The remaining options seemed to only portend of the severe compromise of my livelihood, and that was not acceptable – especially considering my dear master's currently highly unrepentant attitude. Who would be willing to lend a hand to someone treating you like that? But I wasn't about to let him know that his whimsy moods had any effect on my own rational detachment.

Before I could counter with any sort of coherent defense, Mandrake's pale, pinched face grew even tighter. I noted that he was still a little green around the gills and was becoming even more so with how worked up he was getting.

"No jokes, Bartimaeus. You're heading in," he said coldly.

I regarded the boy with a weary look. A look that palpably conveyed refined disdain, muted pity, and loss of respect – if that were even possible any more at this point – without a single word.

"I suppose that whatever I say won't mean anything. After all, I'm only a slave – what do I know?"

The lines of his face tightened, betraying only the slightest undertone of grim satisfaction. "After you."

If my sarcasm had made a dent in his thick skull at all, he didn't care.

The maw of the trunk was just barely wide enough to slip Ptolemy's slim shoulders through, but I didn't bother with the potential embarrassment of attempting to squeeze through. In the form of a ruby-throated hummingbird with verdant feathers, I darted uncertainly about the chest's lip before plunging myself into the darkness.

The lighting didn't get any better down there, and while I continued descending cautiously, I had no point of reference to tell how fast I was going. I glanced upwards and squinted past my beak. The opening was a dull square of white light, and not too far away. Below me, the blackness remained.

Now that I was submerged, I perceived a distinct change in atmosphere. No breeze ruffled the hummingbird's plumage, and the surrounding air itself was utterly still and without temperature. I felt neither warmth nor chill, humidity nor dryness. The volume of air I occupied did not seem hollow or empty, and the quality of the darkness was almost that of intimacy, not unlike that of a snug bedroom's; yet I was aware of a prominent sense of great _space_, inconceivable and unspecific in its expanse. It was not a natural feeling, and humans would not have liked it. I felt strangely at home.

I also felt that I had to reassess my initial estimate of the size of the trunk. The hummingbird stopped its descent and assumed a stationary position. Out of nervous habit, I flipped rapidly through the planes again. I caught my breath.

The night of the trunk was interrupted by a collectively psychedelic mass of magical aura, shimmering and pulsing in rolling hills some hundred meters below. Sheathed inside this immense halo were hulking, mound-like shapes made indistinct by distance. The mounds had distributed themselves in close formation, huddling close together and filling up almost every available space until the aura pooled up and pushed against what I presumed were the trunk's true walls – which, I noted, stretched some fifty meters in either direction. The space was roughly cubical and truly cavernous.

But for all the grandeur of this spectacle, my little hummingbird eyes weren't exactly blinded. The aura did not extend far past its source, the hills, and the darkness didn't automatically give way under its brightness. I reasoned that the Pulse had come back so vibrantly colored due to the sheer quantity of magic here, not the average strength of it. Either way, even djinn can't see everything in total darkness; a severely limited amount of natural light I can work with, e.g. the stars or suspicious candles, but this wasn't cutting it for me. I couldn't make out the exact appearance of the walls or the ceiling, nor could I identify the nature of what was causing the aura.

Sending out a Flare, I observed as the darkness of the first plane was lit up. The Flare crackled, exploded, and faded. From the short-lived brightness, I glimpsed the walls, unimpressive and uneven dark surfaces that arched overhead until the square of dim daylight broke its expanse. Far below, the rusty, sporadic glimmer of gold caught my eye before disappearing.

Time to report back, I think.

The hummingbird fixed its beady eyes on the opening of light and made its way speedily up towards it.

"Well, it's no Pandora's Box," said the hummingbird. It circled twice around Mandrake's head, then turned into the Egyptian boy in a dark sweater.

The boy looked disappointed [5]. "So the box is not enhanced?"

[[5. Right after he looked disoriented and cross-eyed. Trying to follow the progress of a small avian zipping around your head will do that.]]

"Oh, it's enhanced alright. It's just that Pandora's Box is to this thing what the average commoner's living wage is to a magician's ego."

"Stop with the denigrations. So what do you mean, how big exactly is…?"

I shrugged and scraped the sole of Ptolemy's shoe against the concrete. "Big."

"What were the contents?"

"I'm not sure, I valued my life too much to get closer. There's an awful lot of stuff down there though. Dental, rusty, metal things. Old rubbish. Probably not worth it."

"You're only prolonging your stay on earth, you know."

I blew a raspberry and resumed my scraping. The magician's face hardened.

"Take me down there then."

I stopped scraping. "Um. I'm pretty sure that you have scores of imps available to throw for inane purposes like this. What you don't have readily available, it seems, are good ideas and self-preservation skills."

"I am running out of both time and patience, Bartimaeus," he snapped. "Clearly, I can't trust you to be honest about anything. If you want something done, do it yourself, right?"

Rolling my eyes, I transformed into the hummingbird and dove into the trunk once more, too exasperated to argue. Once wrapped in darkness again, I changed back into Ptolemy and hovered below the chest's opening.

"Alright, Mandrake. Jump."

A startled noise reached me from outside. "What?"

I affected an unseen grin and opened my arms invitingly. "Come on now, how else do you expect to get down? You'll fit through the opening fine, being as spindly as you are. Your dear slave will catch you."

More sounds of discomfort were mumbled. Music to my ears.

"By stalling, you are beginning to try my patience," I called benevolently. "And who knows what might happen if I get miffed enough with you?"

A cease in the flow of muttered incoherent dissent. Rustlings. Through the opening was thrust a shiny shoe on the end of a gangly leg. A pause. The other foot followed, and suddenly the square of light was obscured by a tumbling Mandrake.

..

..

* * *

..

..

Mandrake felt a twinge of satisfaction as his flailing foot connected hard with something fleshy before experiencing an onslaught of terror as he continued falling and collided into the said fleshy thing.

He waited for the djinni to steady itself and halt their fall, but that never came. Instead, Mandrake tumbled head over heels through the darkness, lightheaded and panicking, unable to mark his progress or slow down.

Apparently Bartimaeus had managed to slow down to a degree, because their landing was not overly painful, though admittedly lacking in gentleness department. All the breath left Mandrake's lungs in a _whoomph_ as he landed flat on his back. His resulting flinch brought about clinking, metallic sounds from underneath him. While his elbow struck some painful corner, his back was rather well padded by the djinni flattened underneath him.

Mandrake caught himself mumbling an apology, choked himself off mid-sentence, and rolled away. Now that there was no longer a barrier between him and the surface he'd landed on, the magician realized that its topography was irregular, jagged, and of multiple textures. As he moved, the uneven ground shifted, clinked, and gave in slightly under his weight. Head still spinning sickeningly from the wild tumble, he crawled off on all fours and ghosted his hand over what felt like the shape of a wooden… cup? He played his fingers blindly but carefully over the next unique texture. This part of the surface was metallic, solid and…

Hissing through his teeth, Mandrake withdrew his hand fast. He'd cut himself on the edge of something unmistakably sharp and blade-like. Probably some dented sheet of used metal.

"A junkyard?" he mused aloud.

"Not quite." The answering voice belonged to none other than Bartimaeus. And it was coming from some distance to Mandrake's left.

An orange flare lit up the darkness, and Mandrake moaned and slapped his hands over his eyes.

A derisive snicker. "Sorry I'm not more sensitive to your hangover needs, but you might want to take a look. You do have your contact lenses in, right?"

"I have a suspicion that I have actually died and that the afterlife consists of my head being mounted on a ever-spinning carousel, my stomach eternally being crushed by the fist of the divine, and my eyeballs forever used as billiard balls," wheezed Mandrake.

"A punishment of the most mollycoddling sort."

"When I have the energy to stand up and go over there, I'm going to hurl all over you."

"Duly noted."

Reluctantly, Mandrake squinted out from between his fingers. While his eyes were still being tortured by needles, the lighting was still too dim to make out anything but the form of Bartimaeus' Egyptian boy standing some distance off on roughly the same level as Mandrake.

"How did you get all the way over there?" asked Mandrake irritably. The magician hadn't heard the djinni move from where he'd alighted ungracefully on top of it.

Looping strings of light around its fingers, Bartimaeus lazily shot each new glowing, amber thread off into the darkness. Little by little, visibility increased. The honeyed glaze of reflected light shimmered into existence on the 'ground' on which the two of them were situated, and Mandrake struggled to make out what exactly this junkyard was made up of.

The guise of the boy brushed off its hands. "I don't know what you're talking about," it said loftily. "I slowed down some distance before we both injured ourselves upon docking, then dropped you like a sack of potatoes before initiating my own landing roughly where I am standing now."

Mandrake's brow crumpled in incertitude. Then what…?

He glanced back across the distance that he'd crawled. Certainly there was some sort of unevenly shaped silhouette where he'd landed that wasn't reflecting any of Bartimaeus' light, but it was because of this lack of illumination that Mandrake could not pinpoint its exact nature. As far as he could see, the figure was horizontal and on long side in shape. A blanket roll came to mind, or a perhaps a pillow.

A pointed cough cut in on the magician's focus, and Mandrake whipped his head back again. "What is it?"

"Contact lenses, Mandrake. Might want to use them at some point."

After sniffing and taking his time readjusting the cuffs of his jacket, just to let the djinni know he wasn't obeying its orders on any account, Mandrake flipped through the first three planes. He did a double take.

In the light of the all-encompassing aura, Mandrake saw piles and piles of miscellaneous articles as far as his eye could see. This, admittedly, was not far with the darkness and his hindered human eyesight, but it was enough to tell that the cavernous space was filled with hill-like structures – if one could call them that – all made up of magical objects contributing to the aura. Each hill was of varying height, but averaged a towering five to ten meters. Outliers of this median went as high as halfway to the nearly invisible opening, which was still a hopeful pinhead of daylight set in the arching ceiling. Rune-bearing shields, sheathed swords, string-less harps, cracked wine caskets, and other odd instruments of unknown use comprised most of the visible surface, with the exception of narrow, winding pathways between each haphazardly unorganized mound. Mandrake even recognized he indistinct outline of what looked like an ancient sailboat precariously riding the crest of a hill. The walls, floor, and ceiling appeared ashen and uneven; Mandrake came up blank on what material they could be made of.

Mandrake noted that he was surveying this all from a relatively flat and plateau-like 'hilltop', and that Bartimaeus was perched on the one directly opposite across a gorge-like pathway somewhere below. He then turned his attention to his bleeding hand. After scanning the objects around him, Mandrake quickly found the culprit of his cut: a silver dagger, sparkling dangerously in bronze, unsheathed glory.

"Don't be too overwhelmed by the rustic splendor of it all." Once again, his attention was drawn away by the demon. This time, Bartimaeus had picked up a ceramic vase the size of the dark-skinned boy's thin torso and was tossing it from hand to hand. "I'm not so sure anything of notable strength is here, save for whatever nearly tore apart my essence earlier. If you look closely, it's largely half-functional or mundane junk. You _might_ find a few peculiar items of real power here, but the rest is average spoil-of-wars stuff. Look at this." Bartimaeus dangled the vase from one hand and thrust it towards Mandrake. "Jar full of chalk. Complete with – " the boy pulled a short, wooden stick out of a slot in the ceramic. With a flick of its wrist, the stick snapped to its full length, which was a good few meters. " – extra long pentacle-drawing stick. Big deal, your slave can appear as something bigger and flashier to impress your peers." Both drawing stick and jar were discarded flippantly to rejoin their mound with a lazy, fluid shrug of the djinni's shoulder.

With disappointment, Mandrake realized that djinni was correct in its observations. The aura in the planes that the magician could access did not yield any object of particular power, as far as he could see. Then again, he couldn't see everything, and all this would make for _fantastic_ anthropological research… and the trunk was of gargantuan proportions! Retreating deep into thought, Mandrake mulled over the possible consequences and benefits from this venture. No matter what the eventual finds in the contents, the trunk itself would still be a formidable addition to government property, and there was no knowing what would eventually be uncovered within.

But before he would allow himself to be consumed by triumph, there was something he needed to put himself at ease about. Mandrake turned away from Bartimaeus and squinted behind him. The unreflective lump was still there.

Mandrake began to crawl back to it.

"Find something?" The weight of Bartimaeus' guise settled next to Mandrake as he picked his way carefully across breastplates and feathered headdresses.

"Something buffered my fall, and apparently it wasn't you," Mandrake addressed Bartimaeus' shins as he shuffled past the djinni. "I'm just taking a look."

Bartimaeus' gaze was drawn to the mysterious silhouette. "That thing? Well, lucky you had a mattress magically appear where you happened to land. A body-catching bed – the most useful artifact here, I imagine." The Egyptian boy pranced lightly ahead of Mandrake and over the barely-perceptible shape. Extending its leg, Bartimaeus flipped the lump over with a foot.

The djinni raised its eyebrows in mild intrigue. "Oh."

Mandrake stopped in his tracks. "Oh?"

"As in, 'oh, we didn't expect that'." Without warning, Bartimaeus seized one end of the shape and lifted it off the ground – it was strangely floppy, like a very big, rolled up, wet rag – and tossed the whole thing in Mandrake's direction.

The thing rolled limply before stopping close enough to be touching one of Mandrake's hands. A rancid stench rose into the magician's nostrils, and he coughed and uttered noises of disgust.

Just as his hacking fit subsided, he noticed the true nature of the thing and descended into revolted coughs once more.

Staring up at him with hollow eyes was the bloated, mottled-white face of a dead man.

..

Up above in the daylight, Piper scribbles the minutes. "Twenty minutes since entry of the trunk; 1:00 pm in the afternoon."

..

..


End file.
